Photography

Working with Strobe Lighting

February 22, 2010 Today we learned about flash/strobe lighting and things to modify the lights like soft boxes, umbrellas and grates. The strobe lights that we use have power packs which we can use to adjust the power and control the amount of light emitted by the strobe. The power packs we have can fire up to 3 strobes. We attached PocketWizards to the hotshoe of our cameras to trigger the strobe lights. Dave and Erik explaining how to use the power pack and strobe lights. Image by William Lee. On to modifiers! Umbrellas, softboxes and grates oh my! Image by William Lee. James and Mikela taken with a softbox. Image by Wiliam Lee. I took this with the umbrella above Mikhaela, James and Alejandra. Image by William Lee. James and his future wife just using a strobe and reflector. Image by William Lee. Learning to control light is essential to becoming a great photographer. Tomorrow we have to shoot a group assignment called the "Dropped Bag." We can only use one light to shoot an image where a bag is dropped and the contents have spilled out on the floor. From the contents and the surface of the floor we should be able to tell a story of who's bag it is and why it was dropped. It'll be interesting to see what the groups come up with.